Cits and Civs, Captains and Commanders, you’re tuned to episode 251 of Guard Frequency — the best damn space sim podcast ever! This episode was recorded on March 8, 2019 and released for streaming and download on Tuesday, March 12, 2019 at GuardFrequency.com

This Week’s Schedule

Community Question(s)

How much sass do you want from your self driving vehicle?

What other games* are close enough to space-sims that we should be talking about?

*No More Sky is not an option per The Immortal.

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H Alan

It’s incredible the job the audio crew does converting the Audacity Twitch recordings into the podcast we enjoy. Well done Mikey, Lennon and Bill.

I use my vehicle to commute and escape the sass I get in real life from family and friends. I certainly don’t want OR need anything to contribute to my redline road rage levels. Well, maybe if the self-driving vehicle had size 5 laser repeaters mounted on it I would accept a little.

What’s the latest on Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw? Epic Games has it listed as [ Coming Soon ] (sans TM) Will this be another post-Trump release?

What’s up guys? Just wanted to chime in with my two cents and enjoy the pleasure of hearing my name read on the air again.

Community Questions:
q) How much sass do you want from your self-driving vehicle?
a) I think the perfect amount of sass in an artificial intelligence is one that makes you question your possibly bad decisions. Therefore, the perfect amount of sass for me is an AI that asks “are you sure you want to do that?” when I ask it to plot me a route to Wendy’s or Taco Bueno. I just need someone second-guessing that decision so I don’t make it, or at least feel comfortably guilty about it if I decide to go anyways.

q) What other games* are close enough to space-sims that we should be talking about?
a) If I thought I could grasp what the definition of a space sim was according to Tony, I would try my best to convince him that Kerbal Space Program (a game that simulates going to space) is a space sim. I’m pretty sure he would pull precedent from a case 65 years ago to make the case that it wasn’t, and the judge would rule in his favor anyways, and then we’d all go have lunch, but I could at least die satisfied I tried to make the argument. I don’t know where to go for Kerbal news now that Kerbalcast is off the air.

I wanted to chime in on the features road map for Elite as well. Tony mentioned that people are looking for something new to keep them around, and without it, they’d drift away. Well, I drifted away sometime last year, and with the new exploration mechanics, ships, and other assorted bits and bobs, I’m back on my exploration/trading grind. There’s a whole new layer of the game I hadn’t even seen until last week, and it’s making the game fun for me again. I had gotten to the point where I was grinding to engineer an Asp Explorer, now I’m tooling around and epxloring with my middling upgrades and having a blast. I’m also looking at getting into the Powerplay/BGS parts of the game around Andceeth, 100% thanks to you guys.

My point being is that at any point in Elite’s life cycle, there’s been kind of an Oort cloud of players surrounding the game and dropping in and out of the game as features are rolled out. They don’t need to keep a constant thumb on the pulse of the most hardcore players, they just need to generate enough gravity to keep pulling players in from that Oort cloud and dropping back in the game. For every guy who is bored with the game as it is, there’s a guy like me who has been working toddler-wrangling for most of the week and gets about 2 hours of that week to spend flying exploration missions. That is to say I haven’t run out of content yet, and don’t expect to.

In any case, thanks for being my lifeline to the world of space sims (whatever those two words mean). Recently joined the Discord and am looking forward to hanging out with all the other Guard Freq fans!